Free
by Collie Parkillo
Summary: The cutters were never innocents, but they were never guilty, only looking for a way out of pretty, looking for freedom but finding a whole different, much more dangerous trap. /oneshot/


**Disclaimer: _Uglies, Pretties, Specials, _and _Extras _are all copyright Scott Westerfeld. I own nothing but Rida.  
>Author's Note: Scott Westerfeld's <em>Uglies<em> series is one of my very favorites, even surpassing Harry Potter in my opinion. So I decided to write this from the perspective of one of Shay's Cutters. **

_Free_

It is never easy to feel pain, and Rida is no different. And what this girl and her strange ideas is saying is to cause pain and you'll feel something, something different than normal. If that's true, thinks Rida, then that would be the most wonderful discovering for years to come.

Why would Rida want to not be normal? The girl, Shay, had said that the pretties' brains were tampered with. Rida had wanted to scream and hide, this was not casually taken knowledge. And yet Shay had said it as though it were a blessing, and had finished her speech with, "And that is why we will cut our prettiness away with every stroke."

Cut? Why would she cut? If cutting took away prettiness, Rida is not sure whether it's the right idea. She might become _ugly. _And that would be the most tragic of fates, she'd read about uglies, how they fought, how they had flaws that protruded outside of their personalities, which Rida has heard are equally ugly. It is hard to believe she ever was one.

Shay says in a low but excited voice, like she is telling a secret, "This will make you..." She pauses here, for drama, then her voice becomes an almost insanely excited whisper, _"Bubbly." _Rida's spine becomes filled with shivers that rack her entire body.

"Are you ready?" Shay's eyes gleam with insane devotion to her own religion.

They all nod, even Rida. She doesn't want to, though. She doesn't want to be not-pretty. But Shay seems so sure it won't affect them physically, but Rida still has her doubts. It will make them smarter, right? Smart is what Rida wants. Smart is the new pretty, she thinks, but that phrase just sounds so utterly bogus that she doesn't mentally repeat it.

"All of you, raise your knives to a new kind of pretty, an _intelligent _one." Shay smiles, and slashes her knife across her arm. Rida stares at her in horror, if this is what makes bubbly she's not sure she really wants to be bubbly.

The rest of the cutters bring their knives up to their arms, but a few look around unsurely, like Rida. She whispers to the boy next to her, who has cut already, "How does it feel?"

He smiles. "Good. Very good. Not, like, pretty good, but an amazing feeling." His eyes are somewhere else, not this world, he's happy.

Happy. Rida wants to be happy too. She lets her knife cut across her arm, releasing prettiness, she thinks, she feels exhilarated, like she's just jumped off a cliff and discovered that she can fly.

The boy is right. It _is _an amazing feeling. More amazing than any other thing she's ever experienced as a pretty. Shay says, "Isn't it wonderful? Even though you're losing blood, you're finally alive."

"Will we die?" one girl asks worriedly.

Shay laughs. "No, of course not! We'll live, and live in more of a fulfilling way than the other pretties! Screw any pills, this is _our _cure!"

Rida wonders what she means by pills. Pills are good for you, they can calm you down and put you to sleep, is there a cure pill? "What do you mean, Shay?" Rida asks.

"Oh, nothing, just someone I knew who'd found a pill like that, but was _selfish _and took them all for herself and her little boyfriend." Shay's voice becomes bitter, it's clear how much she hates whoever she's speaking about.

"Oh. That's terrible!" Another girl chimes in.

"Indeed," Shay says. "But that's in the past. We've got to forget her and just keep on bleeding our prettiness away. Our cure is much bubblier than theirs."

A skinny, rather undernourished looking brunette boy (he really ought to get that surged into looking more like he actually ate, thinks Rida, but then scolds herself for acting so much like a pretty.) is nibbling on one of his nails and looking back and forth. Shay turns on him. "What's wrong?" The dangerous expression on her face suggests that if you are against the cutting, you just might be ripped into shreds.

"It just...hurts." Brunette looks back and forth

"Of course it does, idiot! That's what bubbly-ness is! Excitement through pain!" Bubbly-ness isn't a word, thinks Rida, Shay should act more smart-making if she wants to make all of us smarter.

"Ok...but won't we bleed to death if we don't treat the wounds?" Brunette does have a point.

"Just bandage them," Shay snaps. She dislikes people who argue with her new way of life, which may not be such a good thing. Not smart-making. Smart-making people accept everything, right?

Rida doesn't speak these doubts, Shay is holding a knife and it might not be terribly wise to get on her bad side.

"Now, cutters, feel free to bleed as much as you like, it won't hurt as long as you bandage them up and wash them afterwards." Then it dawns on Rida. Shay is _insane. Insane. _This is what she believes, that hurting yourself can make you bubbly. Bubbly-making things are exciting. Not painful.

Rida Meenark came here to free herself. But it seems that with freedom, comes another trap, a trap at a costume party disguised as freedom.


End file.
